Heart of the PingPong Paddle!
by lily22
Summary: Yami may be the King of Games, but can he defeat the all-time world champion of ping-pong (who happens to be a certain blue-eyed, dragon-loving CEO) at his own game? Maybe his title doesn’t apply to all games after all… but how can he give up with somethi
1. The door's stuck

**Title: **Heart of the Ping-Pong Paddle!

**Summary: **Yami may be the King of Games, but can he defeat the world champion of ping-pong (who happens to be a certain blue-eyed, dragon-loving CEO) at his own game? Maybe his title doesn't apply to all games after all… but how can he give up with something so important on the line?

**Warnings: **I think I have made the characters a bit OOC, but it's all in the name of fun, honest! You could probably see pairings if you squint really hard, but if it bothers you, don't squint. Also, I apparently didn't make it to the ping-pong in this chapter. Oops.

One more thing: I am not a humor writer. This is probably apparent.

* * *

**Chapter 1: **The door's stuck.

"Okay," said Honda. He was standing on the fire escape, peering through a window into Bakura's living room. "Here's the plan—Kaiba breaks into the apartment through this window, goes around to the storage room, gets his cards, and comes back out. Sound good?"

"I don't like the sound of that 'breaking in' part," said Anzu. "I mean, we don't want to damage Bakura's window or anything."

"Bakura said over the phone it should be okay," said Honda. "Since it _is_ the window right by the fire escape, it's probably designed to be easy to open up or something."

"You really can't wait for Bakura to come back?" said Jounouchi. "Didn't he say he'd be home tomorrow or something?"

"I think it was Saturday," said Yuugi.

"Yeah, Saturday. In three days. You really can't wait that long?"

Kaiba glared. "I'm not leaving my cards in his apartment."

"Don't worry," said Yuugi. "Bakura-kun said they never lock this window anyway, so we won't have to actually break anything to open it."

"All the more reason to get my cards back, in case someone else gets in and decides to steal them," said Kaiba. He sounded a bit sulky.

"Fine," said Honda. "I'm opening it now, okay?"

There was general consent, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"Got it!" said Honda triumphantly. "Go, Kaiba, go!"

Kaiba glared again. He couldn't believe he was doing this. He eased one long leg through the window, then the other, so he was sitting on the sill. Then he slid in.

"And he's in!" said Honda. "Watch him go!"

Kaiba made an exasperated noise, but continued on. The door to the storage room was slightly ajar, and he pushed it open further so he could get in.

As he walked through, the door closed ominously behind him, althoughfor the moment, he didn't give it further thought.

He found his deck almost immediately, perched atop the ping-pong table. There. Now he could get out of there. He turned around…

"What's taking Kaiba so long?" said Jounouchi loudly. "Did he get lost, or what?"

Angrily, Kaiba grabbed the doorknob, yanked—

—something snapped—

—and the knob refused to turn any further.

Kaiba gaped at it. He tried twisting the knob the other way, he tried pushing at the door, he tried pulling the door in…

Nothing.

Why did these things always happen to him?

Kaiba walked over to the one window in the room, which happened to be too small for him to even consider fitting through. After fiddling with the latch a few moments, he stuck his head out, only to find that the window was also conveniently located… only two windows down from the fire escape. He imagined if he managed somehow to get through the tiny window and make a wild leap, he would possibly get close enough to the fire escape stairs to brush his fingers against it… before plunging to an ignominious and unpleasant death.

Sighing, he decided to alert everyone else to his plight.

"The door's stuck," he said flatly.

"What?"

"The door. It is stuck. It doesn't open."

"Are you sure it's not locked?" said Yuugi helpfully.

"It's not locked," said Kaiba.

"The storage room door, we're talking about, right?" said Honda. "That locks from the inside."

"I know," said Kaiba, trying not to start screaming at their extreme stupidity. "I didn't lock it."

"Are you sure?" said Yuugi, helpfully again. "Even if the door's locked it can still close. I mean, what if somebody locked the door while it was open, and you didn't know because the door still closed okay when you went in…"

Kaiba sighed. "I tried locking and unlocking it," said Kaiba. "It didn't open."

"Are you sure?"

Kaiba pulled his head back in so he could massage his temples.

"Maybe we should send someone over there," said Jounouchi. "Tough guy Kaiba obviously doesn't know how to unlock a door."

"The window's kind of small," said Anzu doubtfully.

"I can probably fit," volunteered Yuugi. "And I know how to work the lock."

"There's no need," said Kaiba acidly. "The door is stuck."

Yuugi looked uncertain.

"Hey, are you sure?" said Jounouchi to Yuugi, completely ignoring Kaiba. "The window's kind of far away."

"I could give him a lift," volunteered Honda.

"There's no need," repeated Kaiba, but obviously no one was listening to him. Stupid, thick-skulled—

Kaiba's thoughts were interrupted by a scream. It was unmistakably Yuugi's.

Kaiba eagerly stuck his head out of the window to see whether or not Yuugi was dying, and whether not it was painful and gruesome. To Kaiba's partial disappointment, Yuugi was not dying, painfully or otherwise. The shorter teen gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry," he said. "I was just surprised." Honda had picked him up and lifted him a few feet into the air, which, thought Kaiba viciously, must've made a great difference for someone so short.

"Ready, Yuugi?" said Honda. "We're kind of high up…"

"Don't remind me," said Yuugi, paling.

Honda leaned over the railing to hand Yuugi over to the window. "Kaiba, a little help here?"

"I told you: the door is stuck," said Kaiba angrily. But, because he didn't want to be stuck in the room until Bakura got back from wherever he was, he reluctantly withdrew his head from the window so Yuugi could get through it. Honda just managed to get Yuugi in position to grab the windowsill, and Kaiba reluctantly helped Yuugi climb in.

"Thank you," said Yuugi cheerfully, and walked over to the door.

There was silence for a few very long, tense moments. Then he sighed and looked at Kaiba.

"You were right, Kaiba-kun," Yuugi said, cringing, sure he was in for it now. "The door's stuck."

**To be continued…**


	2. Thinking with your stomach

**Title: **Heart of the Ping-Pong Paddle!

**Summary: **Yami may be the King of Games, but can he defeat the all-time world champion of ping-pong (who happens to be a certain blue-eyed, dragon-loving CEO) at his own game? Maybe his title doesn't apply to all games after all… but how can he give up with something so important on the line?

**Warnings: **Again, I fail to make it to the ping-pong. I should probably change the title.

* * *

**Chapter 2: **Thinking with your stomach.

"I was wrong and you were right, Kaiba-kun," said Yuugi. "The door is stuck."

"What was that?" said Kaiba, arms crossed over his chest.

Yuugi sighed. "You were right, Kaiba-kun. The door's stuck. I'm sorry."

"I couldn't quite catch that…"

Yuugi screwed his eyes shut and raised his voice, "I was wrong, Kaiba-kun! I was wrong! I'm sorry! You were right! I wasn't!"

Kaiba decided to let it go.

"Yuugi, why don't you get out of there?" called his friends from the fire escape. Yuugi stuck his head outside the window to look at them over the alarmingly large stretch of empty air.

"It's kind of far away," he said, finally.

"We managed to get you over there, didn't we? 'Course we can get you back."

Yuugi crawled partway out of the window, reaching for Honda's outstretched hand, which was about half a foot too far. Yuugi shrank back into the window frame, trembling.

"Get out of here already," snapped Kaiba.

Yuugi looked up at Kaiba uncertainly, swallow. He tried to reach further… further…

Honda and Jounouchi shouted suddenly, Honda because he could feel himself slipping and Jounouchi because he'd noticed and was scrambling to grab the back of Honda's shirt. At the sound, Yuugi jumped as well, but he wasn't so lucky as Honda, who was now back on the fire escape, with Jounouchi and Anzu still holding on to him.

Yuugi squeezed his eyes shut. He was falling, falling… Any moment now, he would feel the impact of the ground on his back, and it would really painful, and maybe his bones would break, and—

Oof.

Yuugi opened his eyes. Surprisingly, he was not dead, and although his back stung, the pain wasn't too much worse than, say, tripping over his feet and landing on the ground. The pain in his wrist and shoulder was a different matter altogether, but at the moment he wasn't really thinking about that. What he was thinking about, as he opened his eyes, were the buildings he saw in front of him, apparently floating in the sky. When you were lying flat on his back, and you opened your eyes, you didn't usually see buildings, did you? He chanced a look over his feet and his eyes bulged to see the drop below him. So he wasn't lying on the ground after all. He was floating vertically in midair…? Yuugi looked up to find that his right arm was extended straight and that there was a hand attached to his wrist…

Well, there usually was a hand attached to his wrist. It was just that the hand usually attached to his wrist didn't grip it with painfully strong fingers—in fact, the hand usually grew with the fingers pointing in the opposite direction.

Yuugi looked further up.

"If you'd stop dangling there like a fool, I might decide to pull you up," snapped Kaiba, the owner of the extra hand on Yuugi's wrist. "Or maybe I should just let you drop."

As if to demonstrate his point, Yuugi's wrist slid almost a centimeter in Kaiba's grip. Yuugi yelled loudly and, by dint of abject terror, managed to latch his left hand to Kaiba's wrist. Hey, turnabout is fair play.

"Ow. Okay, okay, I'm pulling you up," said Kaiba, continuing to mutter to himself under his breath.

As soon as he could, Yuugi attached himself to the windowsill.

_"—should've let him fall, little runt—" _said Kaiba.

"You can go now," said Kaiba bluntly.

"What?" Yuugi looked up.

"Get back on the fire escape and leave me alone."

"But I can't go over there! It's too far away! I almost fell! I almost _died_!"

"More's the pity," said Kaiba. "Try again. I'm not going to let you in."

_"What?"_

"It's bad enough having to spend three days locked in a room—I'm _not_ going to spend them locked in a room with you of all people."

"But… but…"

"Get back on the fire escape or hang here until your arms give out, I don't care. I'm not letting you in."

"Kaiba-kuuuun," said Yuugi, in tears. "But I can't! My shoulder really hurts. And my back is one big bruise. And, and it's so far away…"

"Suck it up," said Kaiba, and glared.

"Let him in, you jerk!" said Jounouchi, practically falling over the banister in his rage.

"Come on, Yuugi," said Anzu. "We wouldn't leave you in a room alone with that creep anyway. We'll be more careful this time."

"But how are you going to reach me?"

"Don't worry about a thing," said Honda. "Jounouchi's going to hold my ankles, and I'm going to grab you, and then Jounouchi will pull us both back."

"Are you sure?"

"Hey, are you doubting my ankle-holding skills?" said Jounouchi. "We'll have you off that window in no time."

Kaiba was still standing behind said window, arms crossed once more, glaring down at Yuugi.

"I sure hope so," said Yuugi, in a very small voice.

* * *

"Ow…" whimpered Yuugi.

"Ow…" Honda agreed, massaging his ankles.

"What are you guys talking about? _I_'m the one who had to hold up all of Honda's weight. Lay off on those cheeseburgers, man, you hear?"

"Are you saying I'm fat?" snapped Honda, for a moment forgetting about his ankles.

"Nah, I'm just saying you're _overweight_."

"Guys, cut it out," said Anzu.

"Do you want to take this outside?" said Honda.

"We _are_ outside, smart one," said Jounouchi.

"Guys!" snapped Anzu, and promptly whacked Honda over the head with her purse.

"Ow…" moaned Honda. "Hey, how come Jounouchi doesn't get hit?"

"Because Jounouchi's right," said Jounouchi. "Because Jounouchi—ow!"

"Kaiba-kun," pleaded Yuugi. "Can I please come in now?"

"I believe we've already established the fact that I'm _not letting you in_," said Kaiba.

"But we all nearly _died_ just then!" wailed Yuugi. "Again!"

"Another fine opportunity wasted," said Kaiba.

"Kaiba-kun!!"

"Let him in, Kaiba!" said Anzu, who by now wasn't sure whether Yuugi would be worse off falling five stories or locked in a room with Kaiba. "You can see he's not going to be able to hold on much longer! Just let him in! Do you want him to _die_ or something?"

"Personally, I'd choose death," grumbled Honda.

Jounouchi straightened up suddenly, a gleam in his eye. "Oh Kaiba!" he called, grinning widely. "Are you hungry?"

"Some people think with their heads, not their stomachs," said Kaiba.

"Well, the way I see it," said Jounouchi, "If we manage to get Yuugi back, we'll leave you alone. For three whole days. But if we try, and try, and _try_, but still can't get Yuugi back, and he's got to go back into the room with you, well… We couldn't just abandon him. Three days is a loooooong time to go without food or water, don't you think? See, we couldn't care less about you, because face it, you're a jerk. But if Yuugi was in there with you, well, we'd have to make sure he survived. We'd bring him pizza or something, so he won't _starve,_ and soda, so he doesn't _die_ of _thirst_…"

"So you're saying if I don't let Yuugi in, you're just going to leave me to die," said Kaiba.

"That's right!" said Honda, cottoning on. "You're a smart guy. How long can someone last without food or water?"

Kaiba eyed Yuugi again. "Now, I believe, would be an opportune time to repeat what someone else has said in a similar situation."

"Yes?" said Jounouchi.

"Personally, I'd choose _death_."

"Kaiba, you're a jerk," said Anzu.

"So the mutt's said."

"Don't worry," said Jounouchi. "He'll come around when his stomach starts grumbling. Probably hasn't gone hungry a day in his life."

"What would you know about my life?" sneered Kaiba.

"I know that it'll be over pretty soon without water," said Honda. "How old are you, Kaiba? 16? 17? You've done everything you've wanted to with your life, haven't you?"

_"Stupid, stubborn, idiotic—" _muttered Kaiba as he pulled Yuugi into the room, where the smaller boy collapsed onto the carpet, shaking.

"Great!" said Jounouchi, pumping a fist into the air. "I'll go order the pizza!"

**To be continued…**


End file.
